Grüezi to all

May or must I introduce myself? Journalist, passionate collector, documentarian, wine lover, statistician, bon vivant..... Until a year ago, I wrote often in the forum of Wein-Plus, well over 300 posts. Perhaps they were all too long, often intemperate, perhaps just driven by what I was experiencing or had just experienced on a daily basis around wine: Anecdotes, news, experiences.

I have told about the Bordelais, about my favorite region, the Languedoc, my second home, about Switzerland, where my roots are. I have written about Germany, where I have found the best friends (through the forum), the Palatinate, Weinfranken, Rheingau, where we have met wines, culture, but above all people on exploratory trips.

I always associate life with "experiencing". Also with wine. I agree with Marvin R. Shanken, the editor of "Wine Spectator": "There's one fundamental difference between a causal wine consumer and a true wine lover: the former drinks, the later tastes (October 2005)

Tasting, tasting, experiencing, experiencing - living with wine - and thinking about it or simply telling stories: Telling stories, this is what I will do here in a column on a regular basis from now on. In about the same length, in the same form, but with different contents. I am not interested in judging, to be right or even to get right. I donŽt know many things (yet), but what I write, I experienced by myself. Experiences are subjective, but therefore not less true! We can define and describe the world - including the world of wine - but we can only experience it subjectively.

Just as, for example, I experienced again this autumn days in the vineyards of the "Bündner-Herrschaft" (Eastern Switzerland), where probably the best "Pinot Noir" of Switzerland grow. "Wimmlen", says the man from Graubünden - and he doesn't just mean the "grape harvest", but also connects with it his whole love for the vine and the wine. "Wimmle" is not only harvest, it is selection. The good berries are separated from the bad. Grape by grape, berry by berry. This is the only way to produce the Pinot that belongs to the best. This year, I got to know a new term - for me - close to my skin and hands: "stalk lame" - also called stalk paralysis or grape wilt in wine literature. Winemakers and oenologists know the phenomenon, but which wine connoisseur can also do something with it?

I thought about this in the vineyard - at the foot of the mighty Bündnerberge - with grapes in my hands. Stielahm? Or even stillahm? So far, as a wine drinker and journalist, I have only known "lack of style", "lack of style" or even "stillahm", namely in wine, but also in some talk and writing about wine.

So I am glad that I have now also discovered the letter "e" in the word "style": i.e. stem paralysis. Hopefully, from now on, my wine notes will also be more stylish as a result.

Yours sincerely
Peter (Züllig)